(RFE/RL)
16 January 2006 -- Georgia's breakaway republic of South Ossetia is threatening not to send its negotiators to a meeting of the international group that monitors implementation of the 1992 cease-fire agreed by South Ossetia and Georgia.

South Ossetia's chief negotiator, Boris Chochiev, said his team would attend the 18-19 January meeting of the Joint Control Commission, to be held in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, only if Georgia apologizes for a statement made in November in which Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili threatened to arrest the South Ossetian leadership.